Technical basis for managing water supply in critical basins: New alternatives applied to the Colombian case

In order to advance towards solving the problem of water supply in critical basins in Colombia, the Environmental Ministry and the Javeriana University formulated the technical basis for management of water supply in critical basins. The aim was at developing a methodology that handles in the most efficient way water resources in that kind of system. This guide proposes usage of new technologies for management. Basic geophysical characterization of basins was proposed to be carried out with free GIS software. For water balance, the Thomas model (abed) was proposed. In addition, it is taken into account the minimum ecological flow rate and the minimum requirements for the control of water quality in the streams. The demand is calculated spatially in order to know how the water resource in basins should be distributed. With the results of water balance and water demand a Decision Support System (DSS) is proposed that joins both the technical results and the expert knowledge of the basin inhabitants. The methodology was applied in critical basins with different conditions and the results show a promising performance of the methodology.